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Autumn Conference is a great opportunity to get back into the swing of campaigning after what has been an incredible summer. We plan to offer excellent training, as usual, and host some lively debates. Keep an eye on our website for further updates once the conference schedule gets finalised.

Responding to reports that Labour-run Southampton City Council are guilty of breaching data laws 62 times last year, Lib Dem spokesperson for Freemantle Alexander Clifton-Melhuish commented:

"It's shocking that the council could fail to treat our data with appropriate care.

"It is the council's duty to ensure the security of our personal information, and therefore the saftey of residents. If bank details, or information on vulnerable children or adults for example, fell into the wrong hands, there could be very serious consequences for the individuals concerned.

"Local residents have no choice but to trust the Council with their personal data as part of our daily lives, whether paying council tax, accessing social care or reporting a pothole. We must hold the Council to the highest level of scrutiny in the way it keeps and shares our data.

"Many already don't trust Labour to handle the delivery of basic services like pothole repair, now it seems they can't be trusted to handle our personal data."

Responding to Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond's Mansion House speech in which he acknowledges the need to raise taxes to fund the NHS, Liberal Democrat Health Spokesperson Baroness Judith Jolly said:

"After finally admitting that the NHS needs investment, it is clear the Tories have no clue where this money is coming from, where is it going or how it will be spent.

Last Wednesday 74 brave Labour MPs defied their party's instructions and put their country first by supporting a Lords amendment for the UK to join the EEA and remain in the single market when we leave the European Union.

Southampton Liberal Democrats are deeply disappointed and dismayed that Southampton Test MP Dr Alan Whitehead decided not to join the 74 but instead abstained to appease his party bosses and keep his post on Jeremy Corbyn's frontbench. Given the scale of the rebellion by Labour and Conservative MPs there was a real possibility of keeping the UK in the single market and protecting thousands of jobs in Southampton. This opportunity was missed, together with the chance to mitigate the disaster of Brexit.

While Dr Whitehead's statement on Facebook acknowledges the Brexit shambles that the government has overseen it fails to address the fundamental need for the UK to stay within the single market and customs union. Dr Whitehead outlines the Labour Party's fantasy approach of having a customs union with the EU but not being part of the customs union. This is magical thinking. The UK is either outside the customs union or it is not.

During last year's general election Dr Whitehead and local Labour activists talked loudly about being pro-EU, but when the question was really asked our local Labour representative chose to side with the Brexit shambles Tory government. Indeed, Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party is rapidly becoming the Tories' biggest asset in driving through the worst possible version of Brexit for our country. In addition, Corbyn has jettisoned the traditional Labour values of international cooperation and solidarity. Is this what Dr Whitehead and local Labour activists want?

In a typically trenchant contribution to the debate in parliament last week, senior Labour MP Hilary Benn (and one of the 74 MPs to rebel) noted that we have two choices; we can jump into the sea or climb into a lifeboat. However, the cabinet has spent two years arguing how to make a deep and special lifeboat, and that it can only be a matter of time before a minister announces that no lifeboat is better than a bad lifeboat. If Benn can see the true nature of the problem, why can't Dr Whitehead?

The Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to detail exactly how they plan on funding the £20 billion NHS cash injection. Responding to May's speech, former Liberal Democrat Health Minister Norman Lamb said:

"The Government has missed a golden opportunity to work with other parties to come up with a transparent and properly-funded plan for the NHS and social care. Instead, they have shamelessly misled the public with the myth of a 'Brexit Dividend', which simply doesn't exist.

"The Tories' promise of a £20 billion cash injection rings hollow with no clarity as to where the money will come from. The IFS and the King's Fund have also said that it won't be enough to deliver a modern NHS that treats people with mental and physical ill health equally.

"In her speech May called for a more efficient NHS, but this will be impossible to achieve when none of the new funding is going towards social care, public health or prevention.

"This is not the long-term plan that the NHS and social care need. To achieve this, the Government must accept the need to work with others to find a solution which offers sustainable funding.

The Lib Dems are the only party putting forward an immediate 1p increase in income tax - which would raise an additional £6bn a year."

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